(01-12) 18:59 PST LOS ANGELES, (AP) —

“Tangled” ascended to the top of the international box office race in its seventh weekend of release, jumping from sixth place in 21 territories to the top spot in 28 territories and earning $24.8 million as it crosses the $350 million mark in worldwide revenue.

Astonishingly, at No. 2, the Italian comedy “Ma che Bella Giornata” (translated as “But What a Beautiful Day”) earned an incredible $24.3 million in just two international territories in its debut weekend, with nary a North American screen in sight.

In notable action outside of the top five, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” crossed the $900 million mark in global revenues, fueled by an $8.4 million weekend in an impressive 40 international territories after just two months in release.

Here are the top 20 movies at international theaters last weekend, followed by international gross for the weekend (excluding North America), number of theater locations, number of territories, worldwide gross to date (including North America), and number of weeks in release as compiled Wednesday by global media measurement company Rentrak Corp. and provided by Hollywood.com:

1. “Tangled,” $24,745,055, 5,129 locations, 28 territories, $350,496,102, seven weeks.

2. “Ma Che Bella Giornata,” $24,286,111, four locations, two territories, $24,971,340, one week.

3. “The Tourist,” $19,257,529, 5,123 locations, 43 territories, $161,088,229, five weeks.

4. “Little Fockers,” $19,142,084, 7,298 locations, 40 territories, $233,665,110, 24 weeks.

5. “Gulliver’s Travels,” $15,392,425, 5,083 locations, 24 territories, $95,533,406, three weeks.

6. “Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” $11,914,063, 6,773 locations, 44 territories, $318,599,262, six weeks.

7. “Tron Legacy,” $10,552,856, 5,160 locations, 38 territories, $282,323,324, four weeks.

8. “The King’s Speech,” $8,455,667, 1,279 locations, four territories, $51,724,343, seven weeks.

9. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1,” $8,398,980, 4,158 locations, 40 territories, $910,775,383, eight weeks.

10. “Unstoppable,” $8,206,293, 984 locations, 12 territories, $139,504,549, nine weeks.

11. “Season of the Witch,” $6,916,301, 3,260 locations, six territories, $18,283,137, one week.

12. “Megamind,” $6,897,952, 3,606 locations, 38 territories, $293,122,453, 10 weeks.

13. “Hereafter,” $6,655,831, 322 locations, nine territories, $39,571,721, 13 weeks.

14. “Eyyvah Eyvah 2,” $5,813,364, 426 locations, three territories, $5,813,368, one week.

15. “Love and Other Drugs,” $5,472,787, 1,184 locations, 15 territories, $49,726,648, seven weeks.

16. NA

17. “Burlesque,” $3,610,859, 1,053 locations, 18 territories, $56,080,023, seven weeks.

18. “The Next Three Days,” $3,495,953, 1,270 locations, 16 territories, $40,675,321, eight weeks.

19. “Nutcracker: the Untold Story,” $3,375,712, 15 locations, four territories, $12,172,437, three weeks.

20. “127 Hours,” $3,357,380, 398 locations, one territory, $14,257,536, 10 weeks.

___

Paul Dergarabedian is president of the Box Office Division of Hollywood.com and a longtime box office analyst for The Associated Press.

___

Online:

www.Hollywood.com/boxoffice

www.rentrak.com

I’ve vowed not to start any reviews this January or February with a lament about what a horrible time of year this is for movies.

After all, no month — nay, no weekend — is exempt. You’re as likely to get a stinker during the so-called Oscar season (hello? Little Fockers? Gulliver’s Travels?) as you are in January – or June or October.

And you’re just as likely to get a movie like The Green Hornet around, say, Memorial Day or July 4 as you are for the Martin Luther King weekend or Valentine’s Day. There is no season for mindless comic-book influenced super-hero movies.

The pedigree for The Green Hornet is mixed, at best. On the one hand, you’ve got a script by Seth Rogen and cowriter Evan Goldberg, whose last two efforts were the enjoyable Superbad and Pineapple Express. And, for a curveball, you’ve got Rogen himself playing the title role, which gives it an oddly interesting spin.

On the other hand, the film is directed by the incredibly overrated Michel Gondry, whose last outing was the virtually unwatchable Be Kind Rewind. Gondry is also responsible for one of the decade’s most unjustly praised films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

And, true to form, The Green Hornet is a mixed bag — not an abject failure, but still, not a film that recognizes its own strengths. It gets away with a lot – and is often more entertaining and enjoyable than it has any right to be. That’s mostly about the loopy, loose-limbed performance by Rogen and the way he uses costar Jay Chou as a foil — and vice versa. Still, there’s a difference between comic-book action and cartoonishness, a distinction that Gondry doesn’t seem to recognize. The Green Hornet suffers as a result.

Rogen plays Britt Reid, playboy scion to a media empire overseen by his stern father (Tom Wilkinson), crusading editor of the L.A. Daily Sentinel. But when daddy dearest dies mysteriously, Britt is forced to man up and step up to take control of the newspaper – a job that couldn’t interest him less.

Then he meets Kato (Chou), his father’s driver and mechanic — who blows Britt’s mind with both his mechanical prowess and, later, with his martial-arts skills. The two of them initially team up to go out and pull a masked prank — stealing the head off the new statue of Dad.

But mid-vandalism, Britt comes across a gang of toughs attacking a young couple and, without thinking, challenges them. Suddenly he’s surrounded by thugs and in danger of having his face rearranged. Kato comes to his rescue, revealing his previously unseen kung-fu chops to save Britt’s skin.

Click here: This review continues on my website.

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Published: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 12:29 PM     Updated: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 12:33 PM

By

Kristi Turnquist, The Oregonian

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View full sizeAP/Columbia Pictures-Sony/Jaimie TruebloodDoes Seth Rogen have the right hero stuff for “The Green Hornet”?Though early reviews haven’t been exactly ecstatic, box-office pundits are watching this weekend, to see whether the movie, “The Green Hornet,” will fly or flop.

Will moviegoers decide they want to see a movie about a hero who’s not really very super? And how about that weird comedy/action mixture thing?

Finally, can people buy the fact that Seth Rogen is playing the lead?

Now, Rogen has obviously had success with movies like “Knocked Up,” and “Pineapple Express.” But ticket-buyers didn’t exactly storm the multiplexes to see “Observe and Report,” or “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”

So, today’s question: Is Rogen better suited to being a member of an ensemble than he is carrying the show? I vote yes, based on his appealing work in TV’s “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared,” both of which, by the way, are showing on IFC.

Friends, Romans, Rogen-watchers: What do you think? Do you want to see Rogen as the star of a movie? Or is he better as one of the guys?

— Kristi Turnquist